h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sadly, I would like to draw a cartoon but I do not have the paint brush (when I did have it, I was very bad at it), I am not sure what programs would I have to use to make a cartoon with.

You can use anything you like!

Mine are hand-drawn, scanned, and then digitally coloured in Photoshop. But only because I happen to have Photoshop anyway. The Gimp is a free program with roughly equal capabilities, and if you use the Gimpshop version, you can even use Photoshop tutorials, because the tools will have the same names.

I do not have photoshop on my computer and my pc has quite a low memory but thanks for the information. There are local art classes but I do not know if they cover cartoons as well.

Your computer probably does have a basic picture editor, though - if it's a Windows machine, it will have paint!

And if you don't want classes, just doodle to practice. Most of AG is drawn during boring lectures

On my pc I only have the internet and one accessory which is notepad.

I have a lot of surreal ideas for cartoons which is reflected in the poems that I write.

What kind of PC is it? I can help you find the appropriate freeware program. Or even one that works inside your browser!

And if you really want to learn about comics, the best place to start is reading them! I'll recommend some webcomics, if you like...

Also, anything by Scott McCloud, the preeminent comics theorist.

Starting with:

Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

but also

Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art



Or you can, you know, just draw them. It's neither an exclusive nor a purely theoretical activity.

I am on a Microsoft Windows XP and I am using firefox. Thanks for the tips, I will see what my library has as they can always reserve books for me if they do not have them in stock in the local library or something similar.

If your machine is capable of running XP, it should be able to handle most things.

I've not tried this, but it looks ok for basic cartooning: http://www.youdraw.com/

Actually, scratch that, they want exclusive copyright!

Hmm. Somebody was telling me about Picasso for XP the other day.
I use the Paint program that came with my windows 98.
I think XP has a draw feature in Microsoft office, in the photo editor thingy.
And I think Netscape has a draw feature in their Opera composer.

Study is not necessary for cartooning.
Doodling is.

But if you must, check out the cartoons of George Booth, Thurber, Shel Silverstein, Bill Peet, Vip, Bill Mauldin, and any of the old New Yorker magazine crowd.

I suppose we need to differentiate between cartoons and comics, as fluid as the borders are

I am without Microsoft Office package.

I enjoyed greatly reading the Giles (Daily Express) cartoon annuals and other comics that I read were Oor Willie a comic supplement with the Scottish Sunday newspaper The Post. I now read Marvel Graphic novels.

I do not know if my library will have any of the New Yorker magazines as I am in the UK.

Go to the New Yorker website.

Or go to Amazon. The New Yorker has published many volumes of their panel cartoons over the last 70 years.

Malabarista
"I suppose we need to differentiate between cartoons and comics, as fluid as the borders are'

Up to a point. "Sequential Art", as comics have been called by one of the masters, Will Eisner, is merely the single panel multiplied. A good sequential artist can pique your interest with a single panel of a multi-page work. Will Eisner was a genius at that.
The early comics version of MAD magazine is a good example.

Giles's work is sequential in a single large panel. You can spend minutes perusing what he squirreled away in the corners of his work.
Richard Scarry is very similar. Each page of his books is filled with fun little details and the pages could stand alone as paintings even taken out of context.

Herge's work with Tintin is another good example. Even without text, each single panel is a masterpiece of line and perspective.

Strictly single panel art often involves more detail than sequential art, but sometimes the artist gives you just a few lines, like Thurber or Shel Silverstein, and you have to fill in the rest yourself.

The best of both forms works as a pantomime. You can get the gist or a sense of what is going on without any words.

The beginning artist has to become comfortable with the blank page, using a pencil as a chisel to carve away the unwanted portions instead of thinking of the page as a void to be filled.

I merely meant that in cartoons, a single panel tells the *whole* story, while a comic builds it over many - at least that's how I'd differentiate them. Whether each panel is art unto itself (without speech bubbles or captions, if you're good) is another matter entirely!

Malabarista
"as fluid as the borders are"

I hadn't really looked at that phrase until now.
The bog mindles!
Fluid borders...

Reminds me of me home State, Illinois... bordered on most sides by water.

Fluid borders...
or that Borders Bookstore used to be famous for their coffee bar at the front of the shoppe... and the loo a quarter kilometre away at the rear of the shoppe...

" I merely meant that in cartoons, a single panel tells the *whole* story, while a comic builds it over many - at least that's how I'd differentiate them. Whether each panel is art unto itself (without speech bubbles or captions, if you're good) is another matter entirely!"

Wasn't arguing. Just pontificating for posterity.

You can substitute "dynamic" if you like

"I am without Microsoft Office package"

Goof around on line. There are free thingies, like Open Office and Office Pad or something like that.

Peer into the corners of your start menu and your program list. There might be something there that will surprise you. You have to have some way to store and modify jpegs and bitmaps.

"dynamic"

Doesn't that involve a coyote and a box labelled "ACME"?

"dynamic"

Is that like a paradigm?

I don't do collegespeak. I dropped out of two instiutions of higher learning. Thus, I am a low learner.